I've posted a video at the top of the forum of an experiment I am presently engaged in... like I need another distraction this close to DECFEST ;)

Above is a still shot I took during one of the experiments I'm doing with photographing sound inside a single drop of water. The frequency was 528Hz and the amplifier was a Zen Triode. As experimenting ramps up this winter, I'll be using a TORII Jr because I need more power to get high frequencies.

While as you might expect, different frequencies will create different geometric patterns, but I am first focusing solely on one frequency and changing only the size of the water droplet and the amplitude of the signal to see what the range of patterns are.

The drop of water is placed inside a bowl sized to hold exactly one drop so that when the drop is placed inside the bowl it can become either a sphere or a hemisphere depending on how much water I use.

Anyway, I though this little teaser might be of interest to some of you. I plan to take this same 3 minute video and create a second video where explain what's happening and point out the similarities between what you see here, and what actually happens in your room, as the two are hauntingly similar.

What you see in the water is almost exactly what happens within the boundaries that create your listening space. You can watch the boundaries of the visible pattern become pressurized when the volume is increased and in turn cause new patterns to emerge as a way of dealing with the pressure.

I believe every frequency played in a listening room creates an instantaneous spherical geometric pattern that the fills the room almost exactly the way you see it work inside the water droplet.

Anyway, for those who might find it fun not to wait for the full explanation, there is perhaps an hour of knowledge about acoustics in this 3 minute experiment, especially if you begin to study and compare frames.

I have already found out that these experiments will have another benefit in that they allow me to see harmonic distortion levels of the amplifier, particular tubes, and the source with far more information than I get from my distortion analyzer and scope.

The image here was 0.7% THD The pattern becomes unrecognizable at around 20%.

Fascinating subject, Steve. Points out the complexity of what we are hearing - also the complexity of good design of components and room treatments. Keep us informed w/your future experiments, esp. incorporating this knowledge into design of room treatments.

I think the biggest initial takeaway from this is going to be that the concept that sound travels in waves from your speaker to the walls and then reflects off those walls in waves is completely irrelevant and misleading.

The above visual is basically meaningless. Sure this is what happens in the first few micro-seconds before the sound wave encounters it's first boundary... what people need to realize is how fast sound reflects around the room. No one can. Instead there is this instantaneous (to us) pattern filling the entire room for every frequency that exists simultaneously in the listening space. imagine 20,000 of these patterns squared as they multiplex out across the dynamic range of amplitude. Hundreds of millions of nodes and anti-nodes with an equal number of edie currents of air that rotate and spiral around through the matrix. It's not hard to see why there are magic pressure levels for any given music in any given space.

Trust me, this is going to be enlightening. It begins to explain the shape of the human ear, vs. a microphone diaphragm.

The complexity of sound is akin to nothing. Sound is what stalls energy and patterns it into matter, so to think of it only as waves is pretty non-productive. Since sound is what underpins the universe and all reality, it seems reasonable to suggest it spans all 144 dimensions as opposed to being expressed as air pressure waves that exist only in the 3rd dimension as science might suggest.

I've always been with the mind that ultra high frequency is *felt*, and we can and do "hear" beyond the 20Hz to 20kHz.

I think part of why I still hear so well, and pick out things others miss, is that I'm more in tune with these ultra high sounds. It effects how I sense space in life, as well as in recordings. I think most people are tuned out on it, like when you live near train tracks but no longer hear the train.

I also wonder about the effect of removing other sensations while listening? How many turn the lights down low and get comfortable before listening?And I know that the drinkers and dopers out there say that imbibing opens up their senses.Right now I'm drinking a glass of lukewarm water, have about half of a headache and am fighting off a cold. Everything sounds like shit.

I`m so glad Steve designed and built my amps. My mind cant articulate the complexities of sound through speech, just a jumble of theories which are only maybes because I dont have the proofs or time required and tools at hand to get the truer explanations. Steve post is Zen-like and that angle is, when you think about it, quite cosmic. Wheels within wheels and the patterns of vibrations. I wonder if our ears take energy from the waves and therefore help the decay process, like a vibration control draining unwanted vibrations away. Do sound waves seek out ears like a magnet. Thats what happen when I trip out to these deeper meanings. More question than answers.

The more I think about this, the cooler it seems to me. I'm thinking that the only real-world way to design room treatments using this knowledge is to have a disc that sends out different tones that is picked up by a microphone (or a series of microphones) in someone's listening room. Those tones would be recorded, and then decoded by a wizard (such as yourself) to design types and placement of different room treatments. (I know that there are programs existing like Audessey that help set eq levels for the components, but I am thinking specifically about designing room treatments for optimal sound in a given room). Am I thinking along the right lines? And when can we expect the disc/software? C'mon, Steve, what's the holdup?

We need to ask aqua man if diffusers work under water an build an experiment to see how the pattern changes with the addition of tiny diffusers. Or we can just look ahead into the future and watch the experiment happen and see that the addition of diffusion along the boundaries' biggest contribution is a delay in the formation of the next pattern by probably around 3dB. So you get to listen to a better focused and simpler flower pattern with some empty space around it.

I'm wondering if this phenomenon would change with the viscosity of the liquid?Would a light oil propagate the waves different? Boundary layer stuff,hysteresis etc...I've hit my head on the ground way too many times since I was in school!

I'm wondering if this phenomenon would change with the viscosity of the liquid?Would a light oil propagate the waves different? Boundary layer stuff,hysteresis etc...I've hit my head on the ground way too many times since I was in school!

I would assume that viscosity, density and other properties of the liquid would have to relate to the frequency used if the goal is to understand sound in air. The usual stuff one adjusts for when doing scale modeling. I'm guessing that frequences used would be shifted down -- or is it up? What did Captain Kirk have Uhura do in Star Trek the Journey Home?

"The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with the concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, deceptions, and spoils;The motions of his spirit are dull as night and his affections dark as Hell. Let no such man be trusted." William Shakespeare

I had a feeling that oil would damp itself out. Long chain molecules have a natural damping effect.Now I would like to see what happens with some detergent in the water to lower the surface tension.I like thinking about stuff like this, it makes my brain tingle.

At this point I tried the other fluids (oil and turpentine) with zero patterns of any kind. Then I went back to Saline Solution and created a larger drop. This time the diameter of the drop is held in place by the first groove which you can no longer see. The second groove is also filled with solution. With this larger drop this was the first usable pattern I could get out of it shown below:

Then with an even larger increase in amplitude you get the fuzzy flower, also possible with water. Since it is impossible to focus because it IS in focus (that's a zen thing) I usually don't post these, however in this case it's good to see what it's breaking point looks like and the interesting surprise that formed in the outer groove!

Look at the complexity of that outer groove... you could levitate a grain of sand in each one of those amber stones... and of course let say you wanted to levitate a grain of sand in the center of just one stone or many... all you would have to do is push it and it would pop into the next node meaning you could move the grain of sand all the way around the ring. Sorry I got distracted.

In fact if you look closely you can see the orifice between each node where the grain could pass through to the next node with zero resistance... damn, still sorry.

It is always easier to hold a pattern when dropping from a higher amplitude and since that last image was pretty much the speed limit, (in more ways than one) this is the next possible pattern. Again, it will not appear on the way up, only on the way down.

Yea, I won't have time to deal with this tomorrow so you'll just have to wait until tomorrow to finish reading this post.

To see what happens to the drop's surface before the initial flower forms... I left small amounts of oil residue in the bowl from prior tests which then found it's way to the surface of the drop. Then I dropped the frequency by a factor of 10 to 52 Hz.

Starting at the lowest amplitude where the rotation just begins and then stepping it up about 4 or 5 times to see the effect on this rotation.

The instant sound hits the drop two counter-rotations appear on it's surface. The speed of these rotations increases with each amplitude increase. Faster and faster the rotation until who knows, it reach perhaps the speed of sound (get it) and then POP! A huge surprise appears and a true metamorphosis occurs. You just have to see it to believe it.

So... now you know what happens on the surface before the first flower forms at 52Hz. BTW, all of these tests are being done with a Zen UFO 2 watt amp bridged to achieve 6 watts in an effort to energize the droplet. A true analog waveform generator is used to feed the frequency into the amplifier.

Think about it... if an amplifier is good enough to do this to a drop of Saline, imagine what is happening inside your head and body which is mostly the same thing.

Speaking about the head, an interesting parallel - in the video you may have just witnessed what it might be like when the left and right hemisphere of the brain achieve balance during meditation and become one... only while of course listening to a Decware amp.

I thank you, Steve for posting these beautiful pictures.Perhaps the most interesting (confusing) for me is that a pattern formed as the amplitude was being decreased which did not exist when the amplitude was being increased.

What a fantastic experiment and venture! So fkn cool. You've totally piqued my interest. I feel like i'm seeing an unbelievable visual of fusion in action. I wonder how the results would change depending on the amount of NaCl in the solution? Get those two nuclei to meld and somehow control the energy and not only have you expanded the principles of sound but also managed to figure out some of the most ambiguous principles of fusion.

Steve, I just watched the video. I feel like the universe is trying to tell us something. Don't vaporize yourself in the process - we need you to stay right where you are. (Uh, no pun intended about vaporizing).Randy

If you think the universe is trying to tell us something with that video... wait until you see what happened this week... when instead of injecting a pure tone into the water droplet, I injected a sacred harmonic from a 19th century bowl from Nepal...